Friday, August 31, 2012

And here at the end of my journey I find myself homeless. Not just homeless. But homeless at home. That’s the Nigger Experience.

John Lennon sang that Woman is the Nigger of the World. And as any NOW will tell you. ‘If you want to survive, you have to run faster, work harder and look cleaner and more buffed than the Master you’re serving.

So when Ringo turned up at the station unshaven and grubby I was horrified.

I wanted to stop by a Laundromat and throw him in the wash. But it was too late. We had a train to catch and strangers to meet at the other end. But every time I looked at his grey curly whiskers on his soft white skin I thought of pubes on a pimply arse. And my heart started beating with anxiety.

I’d invited him to accompany me on my Pet Companion Gig. Why did I do that? I couldn’t remember. I don’t’ recall him ever looking this dirty? But perhaps I wasn’t looking closely. I have to start becoming more judgemental! Because those whiskers did not say Bob Marley or Brad Pitt on a lazy week. Those Whiskers matched his sloppy joe. Which was Boarding house Green. The shade of green that says ‘Hit Me. I’m worthless! Steal my sneakers while you’re at it.’ His sneakers were boarding House Beige. That particular shade that will never look clean, no matter how hard you scrub it. And I suspected they hadn’t been scrubbed for a while.

Like his face.

For the very first time I looked closely at his face. I put aside my rose coloured glasses. (They never fail to fuck me up. I need to smash them.) Through those glasses I saw him as part of my Nomad tribe. But not all nomads are alike. Just like not all thieves have honour. I should have remembered this? But in the back of both our heads was the idea that maybe we could team up? That maybe he could be the tech for my one woman show? I needed a Tech and he needed a Talent. It seemed the perfect solution in theory. I could get back on the road. We could make a small living? I could carry him on my back around the country. Spend the rest of my life cleaning up skid marks and dribble…

Oh dear.

What the hell was I thinking? I’m into Homeless Chic myself. It’s what keeps me on the tightrope and out of the soup kitchen. I look as deadly as I can for a girl with no budget. Down on your luck doesn’t mean that you stop styling up. On the contrary. The worse things become the harder I work to fight gravity. Depression is a luxury reserved for people with houses. Reaching out to the world with no anchor or roots takes an awful lot of focus. And when I turn up to a House Sitting gig my hair is brushed, my clothes are washed and it costs me ten bucks to wax off my moustache. So what’s his excuse? All he has to do is pick up a razor and run it across his face.

His left cheek looked as though it had taken a nap in the gravel. It’s not like he was trying to be Bukowski. He wasn’t trying to be anything. That was the problem. Part of him had given up. A very deep part by the look of it. A part that didn’t want any touching. Trying to clean him up would be like throwing a cat in the bath. You’d never get him clean and he’d never forgive you. He’d just pay you back by pissing in your sheets. What was I thinking?

I was thinking of my Grandparents who were both Orphans and who met at a bus stop. My Grandma had just run away from Molong because she didn’t want to marry a Farmer. She wanted a city life and she dreamt of a Pen Pusher. So she came to the big smoke alone. And then Papa turned up. At the Bus stop. On his way to his job as a Clerk on the Wharves. The Bus was late (some things never change) and so that’s how they discovered they were both Orphans. So they got on that bus and they never got off. They lived happily ever after. In Forest Lodge.

That’s very poetic right?

And since I’ve arrived back in Sydney I’ve spent a lot of time at the Bus Stop with my Grandma. We’ve been communing. I imagine what she felt like when she first arrived in the big smoke and didn’t know a soul. I’ve been listening to her stories and getting under her skin. So when Ringo turned up I thought it was a sign. That we should get on the road together. Well who wouldn’t? He had just arrived in Sydney and staying on a friend’s couch. He was starting again with nothing. Just like I was. We were like Archetypal Orphans. I could feel Grandma egging me on.

There were other benefits to us partnering up. For a start sex would never complicate things. We never saw each other as lovers. I was a ‘Post Romantic Celibate’ and he was ‘Too Fucking Lazy to Get it Up’ So in this way we were compatible. Traveling solo had become very hard. And teaming up seemed like the perfect solution.

Until he turned up looking like a refugee from Matthew Talbert.

Oh Mea Mea Culpa! His whiskers made me very nervous. I had accidently invited a bum with me to my house sitting gig. What was I thinking? My heart pumped faster and faster as the train sped to our destination and my right arm went numb from the shoulder down. I was having a full blown panic attack, triggered by a five oclock shadow. It was Crazy! It’s not like I cared that he looked like a grub. I can tolerate anyone with a good sense of humour. But the people I was dog sitting for didn’t have any humour. I could tell that on the telephone. People who treat their pets like first born children rarely do. They’re generally very serious and neurotic . They don’t care for comedy. They just care that their house will be safe and you won’t rip them off and their Pet is still alive when they return. That’s their ONLY focus. My heart was pumpity pumptity…

What if they took one look at him and turned us back around?

Where would I go? What would I do?

I’d end up sleeping out in the rough with Ringo. That would be no protection! Not with him in his boarding house Green shirt that said ‘Hit Me. I’m worthless!’ The worst scenarios flashed through my head. We’d doss down under a tree. I’d be ready to sleep and his homeless mates would pop by with some beer. I know where his loyalty would be! He’d slip on his dirty sneakers and he’d leave me for dead. Oh what was I thinking!?

I had put my own shelter at risk for a man who didn’t give a shit. Not about me. Not about the people giving us hospitality. And certainly not about himself. My felt my tightrope fraying as we walked to meet our Hostess.

Pumpity pumpity pump…

It all turned out ok. She let us stay. She didn’t leave the car though. She drove the spare car to the neighbors. I went to the Doctor the next day about my panic attacks and he told me that it was the weather. Apparently everyone Panics in winter. I relaxed when I realised I wasn’t going to die .

Ringo relaxed too. He spread out in the lounge room. He coveted the ipad and snuggled in with footy tab. He wasn’t much of a Technician. He couldn’t even turn on the TV without yelling for help. He seemed to have a short fuse for problem solving. And once he’d settled in on the couch he didn’t like moving. He only moved for about ten minutes a day. But I already knew this. The whiskers said it all. They were like tea leaves all over his face predicting our future.

The next evening when the subject came up of further travel I gently suggested that he might like to shave when we turned up at the venues? He didn’t like that suggestion one bit. He bristled with fury. People could just accept him how he was! He wasn’t changing for anyone. Why should he?’ He saw me as some bitch wanting to chop off his dick and I saw him as a spoilt self-entitled white boy who thought he didn’t have to make an effort. He thought a dick in dirty pants was enough introduction. But I’d never lived with that sort of luxury. So I had no empathy.

Still my heart settled properly after the five o’clock shadow was out on the table. I knew then that I couldn’t ask him to scrub up without emasculating him. Which was a big problem for both of us. An emasculated man is a dangerous thing. They can really do some damage. They’re worse than jealous women. This is why I end up teaming up with Narcissists. I mistake them for Alpha men. Because a true Alpha man can take a little critique without cracking. But there aren’t very many of them. Which explains why I’m celibate. But I don’t think I’ll be truly safe until I’m a fully fledged hermit.

He stayed six days and then I asked him to leave. The Orphan went with him.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

My motto is if you ever want to leave the house don’t wait to be invited.

Just invite yourself.

Lawless was lovely. She welcomed me with her fabulous smile and her generous vibe. She even welcomed my Camera! Which was very brave, because she works with Comics. And Comics hate Cameras. I learned this during the Adelaide Fringe.

It’s not that they’re afraid of over-exposure. Exposing themselves is what comics should be good at. It’s more that their shtick is a Glory Box full of jokes that they hoard like old Spinsters. They haul that box (no guts,no glory) around a tired and predictable circuit. And keep pulling those jokes out out again and again. Desperately hoping that their audience is younger and fresher than the material they’re serving. And nobody in the room has Altzeimers. Because you do not want an audience who has access to their long term memory.

That is a Seasoned Comic’s nightmare.

And now thanks to YOU TUBE the Glory Box is on the lawn because every pervert has a camera. Including me. Look Out! It’s a Mash Up! Hide your shtick before it turns into bubble and squeee…

I’m not digressing. I’m RANTING.

but I figured that should be the spirit of a Rick Shapiro benefit night. Since Shapiro is the master of the Rant and the Outlaw of the circuit. I was there to celebrate that spirit! Well it’s not like I was there for the Comedy. Because the truth is I can only love Comics from a distance. Too many issues. They’re more fucked up than Poets. At least Poets don’t work to a punch line. Unless they’re Slam Poets and then they just work to a punch in the head.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I don’t know that Poets are hideous. They drink all your wine and they bludge all your ciggies and then they want to read you their work! To get feedback! As if you haven’t given enough already. But at least they say Thanks after draining you dry !

Unlike Comics!

They just pull it out, wipe it. And then try to turn that soggy tissue into material. They expect unconditional love. They mistake every woman (not wearing a g.string and a fake tan) for Mother.

Comics are the reason why Judith Lucy looks so worn out. It’s from years of swanning around that big fat boys club full of whining man/children who know that they’ll never be men. So their only revenge is to ignore any woman over 25 not sporting a Brazilian. Judith Lucy would have had to sit through years of sexist jokes, pissed blokes and open mics to get where she is today. What a martyr. The smaller the cock the bigger the Booby prize. Booby being the operative word.

Not that I blame them! You only have to look at their audience to understand how Comics are formed. Poets can afford to be thinkers because they know that at least half their audience has read a book, at least once in their life, from beginning to end. Comics, on the other hand, are appealing to an audience with ADD. Three lines and they’re fading. So you gotta hit em hard and fast where they’ve still got a nerve. Which is basically below the belt . Somewhere between their clit and their pocket.

It’s like fifty shades of ‘Spare me’.

It’s not that comedy doesn’t have its occasional Genius. But on the whole most Comics don’t think. They just reflect the culture. And the culture is Reality Television, Celebrity and Master Chef , Renovations, Strip clubs, Bald Beaver and women who have to act like porn stars to get any attention. And lets not forget Rape. Rape is Trending. Not only on stage but all over the internet. There’s the Swedish definition of rape and then there’s the idea of Rape as a form of contraception. Which was trending last week in the ol USA. There’s actually a lot to say about Rape. It’s a gold mine of material, but when you’re working to a punch line it’s important to stay superficial. Which the US visiting Comic managed to do with aplomb. He asked not to be part of my video. I suspect that’s because I turned off my camera in the middle of his set and started drinking. So It’s like some one telling you to fuck off after you’ve already hung up on them. I cannot remember his name…

The female Comic had already killed any oncoming rape jokes by talking about the trapped nerve in her Lady Bits. At the end of her set I just wanted to hug her. It felt mean to laugh. It was more like a scene from Embarrassing Bodies than a Stand Up routine. Her Vagina was a war zone. It had probably heard too many rape jokes. A life in Comedy is enough to make any cunt shut shop.

Which may explain why arsehole is the new pussy?

You could possibly blame Rick Shapiro for this. He was the first Comic in my memory to expose Ass Fucking as the new Olympic sport. Just like Russel Brand brought wheel chair sex to the world of Katy Perrry. Shapiro pulled the curtain on that dirty little back door and made us peer in where we ‘(didn’t) came from. Where’s there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. He’s like the Pied Piper of the large intestine... a million young Comics have since followed him up that ass and got lost…

Because the difference between Shapiro and his imitators is that he channels while he boxes. He lives somewhere between the gladiator pit and the art house. He may hit below the belt but he ignites and he transcends. He pulls out your liver and dangles it under the light.

At least that’s how I remember him.

I saw him one night in New York. After I’d just got off stage from a Poetry Anthology launch at The New School. I was punch drunk and dizzy and lonely and alienated. I couldn’t remember why I performed? It didn’t get me money and it didn’t get me laid. It just got me PTSD, poverty and a permanent headache. In the aftermath of 9-11 it felt dangerous and fruitless. It was the type of existential crisis that only a performer would understand.

So we all wandered down to a late night comedy club and there was Shapiro and for his thirty minute set every thing made sense. And I’m not in the mood to describe why that is. But ever since then I felt grateful. Which is why I gate crashed his benefit night with my video camera when I heard about his 'heart incident'.

But hell is paved with good intentions.

I put that video on his facebook page and everyone ignored it. Including Shapiro.

But the You tube page has two dislikes so someone's watching. And I bet they're both Comics.

In Comedy there is no love. And what love there is

Is Lawless.

Which brings me back to the woman who made this night happen. She booked the gig, put out the hat and welcomed the punters. She’ll send off that cheque without taking a cut. She’s a trooper, a sport and a comedy legend.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Recognised is what I always wanted. But diagnosed is what I’m left with.

Still I sucked the jus out of ‘Recognised’ while I had it.

‘Wow. That’s so nice of you to say. Thanks Ma’.

‘Aunty Glad was also a bit funny. Bless her.’

By funny she meant a bit mental.

My Ma has relaxed since I told her I was diagnosed with Depression. She couldn’t understand what had happened to me. I was always so focused? I must have been drinking. But now my Despair all makes sense to her. I come from a long line of beautiful sensitive Aunts who all had break downs in middle age. But it took Altziemers to bring them all to my attention. Memory is never so strong as when you are about to lose it. Now the living and the dead are all standing in one room and having a knees up Mother Brown. It’s gothic and it’s spooky. You have to get in to gallows humour to truly appreciate it. There’s no holding back now. All the old skeletons come rattling out of Rookwood, and none ask to be invited. The gloves are off, the veils are dropped and it goes for the jugular while it cracks you up. It’s hilarious and terrifying and all in one sentence.

That’s Altzeimers.

So you have to make friends with the Grim Reaper. Or at least learn to look him in the eye and stare him down. Because everywhere, at every turn that scythe wielding prick is sneaking up behind you. Except he’s not there to escort you to the other life, he’s just there to empty you of everything that once comforted you and defined you. First he takes your short term memory. And steals your words and the end of your stories. And it’s not like a hold up. There’s no ‘Hands Up and Gimme’. He just pilfers it away like a sadistic miser. And then he mocks you. He’s an asshole. He uproots your buried dreams. And lets every bogey man out of the closet to shake his limbs. It’s like a bogey man disco. You all start off crumping and end up in a barefoot tango being dragged by the hair across the dance floor. There are no steps. There is no mercy. Logic is a fucking joke and Science aint gunna save you. There is no cure for Altzeimers. Only love can gently guide you through a landscape full of mine bombs…

‘Oh yes. Aunty Glad was superstitious about the colour green. I remember that.’

‘Oh pet you don’t know the half of it. I’ll tell you someday’. But not now. Now I’m busy. I’ve a lot going on in my head.

Oh I know. You must. I love you. If you need me I’m here…’

Yes I love all my children. You’ve all grown into deep people. But stop drinking.

Mum I’m not a drinker.

And say your prayers.

‘Yes I’m praying madly.

‘Good.’

In prayer she never fights for words. Prayer is our bridge.

I feel yours too Ma!’

‘Oh yes it works. I know it works. I’m praying all the time for you! And I’m praying that you don’t bring me any food. It gives me back ache. ‘

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Just a few weeks ago at a dinner party in Melbourne a retiring Rock God said to me ‘Wednesday maybe if you stopped describing yourself as an Artist then you’d get more opportunities? Three times tonight you've referred to yourself as an Artist' As if that was something very shameful and the key to all my woe.

His words slammed like a sucker punch and so I slapped him back with his own self-description. The room gasped but I knew I’d missed his balls. My head was reeling. Why the fuck was I even having this conversation?

I knew that being seen as an Artist was akin to having a venereal disease but it was strange to hear someone who had devoted their life to the muse, chastise me for owning the fact that I’d done the same? I mean he had some volunteer scribe that he was dictating his autobiography to. But maybe he knew it was his shlong she was hanging on ? Because if I looked at all the stories I'd collected on my travels he did have a point.

Nobody likes Artists. Not even other Artists. Unless they’re rich they’re almost universally despised. When Aussies think Artist,they think smelly needy poor lunatic whores with no ears and no sense living in garrets off tax payers money. They think wankers and bludgers and even worse…poets. There is nothing sadder than a Poet. People run from them. They’re not worth robbing and they want to read you their poetry. It’s hideous! Run for the hills! Better to be that guy on his knees at Town Hall who keeps his mouth shut and holds out a cap looking humble and fucked up. At least he has the power to make people feel guilty. Poets don’t have the power to make people feel anything Except perhaps irritated and vaguely suicidal.

So I went to the loo and videoed my feet as I was contemplating. And I remembered when I’d just got back from New York and was still floating on the last of my Manhattan mojo. I had organised a photo story with a magazine and the Crown Casino Day Spa. They were catering to the Melbourne Metro-sexual. And I was bringing in three handsome men for pamper, interview and photo shoot. I had scored myself a room in the Penthouse suite and dinner for everyone involved and facials and mani pedi, massages for the talent. It was a magical ride that all ran like clockwork until the Casino looked at the proof of the photos. The Rock God looked too much like a dirty artist and didn’t fit with their corporate brand so they all freaked out and pulled all the photos. Without the photos I had no story. Without a story I was cast out of the Penthouse Suite and onto a greyhound bus back to Sydney. The clock had turned midnight and it was chutzpah au go go…

I’m a regular Cinderella act.

When I returned to the table to remind the Rock God of that incident I had a napkin swiftly stuffed in my mouth by the Hostess. She tapped her knife on her glass with a ding ding ding It was time to SHUT UP! The discussion was finished. And it’s not like I could argue because I was staying on her lumpy couch.

So I went out on the balcony for a cigarette.

The Rock Wizard joined me and said 'Wednesday I understand when you call yourself an Artist. That makes sense to me because I see myself as an Artist too'. The Wizard was sweet and could afford to be generous because he'd escaped from Australia and been rescued by Germans They even paid him to perform and they weren’t a front for organised crime or anything! He was indeed an Artist. He embodied and owned it. Whereas I had become that twisted thwarted creature that Virginia Woolf once described in a Room of One’s Own.

‘I gotta get out of here’

‘Out of this dinner party?’

‘No. Out of this country. From coast to coast it’s Ding Ding fucking Ding. She needs people like us. Artists darling ARTISTS! But she crossed the line with her 'ding ding ding'. This is why people end up throwing punches. And you know I expected more from Melbourne! I know it fancies itself as the cultural fucking capitol of the arse end of the world but this is not exactly the Round fucking table is it?'

The Rock Wizard listened supportively in silence because Wizards never take sides. They’re too busy looking at the big picture .

Then the Rock God joined us on the balcony and announced ‘A year ago I was diagnosed with Fucking Arsehole Disorder’ as if to explain himself.

‘Oh really? I replied. And all this time I thought you were a GENIUS’.

He had traded in his electric muse for a shrinks diagnosis and now he'd been reduced to a Fucking Arsehole. It was official. And then he pointed to his girlfriend and said ‘This woman saved my life’. As if that was sposed to soften the vibe and make me feel better?

If I’d been diagnosed with Fucking Arsehole Disorder the room would be emptied. It's hard enough being a Disaster Diva with PTSD. That didn't even win me a ticket for the Disability Pension. I tried for that pension TWICE but I failed the twenty point madness test. It’s very hard to pass that test. They’re not even taking Cutters these days. You could crawl into Centrelink hanging off a cross and nobody would blink. They’d just call security. So forget slashing your wrists. It leaves them cold. You’ve got to chop off the whole hand off and poke out your eye and get gangrene in at least one foot and even then you might only add up to nineteen points. It’s a risk.But then once you’re in, you’re officially mental. It’s like a club.

Hi I’m Wednesday PTSD. Pleased to meet you.

Nuts is the new black but unfortunately I’m not quite nutty enough. I’m in a sort of nut limbo. Can’t spit and can’t swallow. I’m one of those nuts who sees themselves as an Artist. Who will show you her stigmata at the slightest provocation. Who is married to the muse and who doesn't make a single choice without his consultation. I'm a regular moon mama. And I may be delusional. But I aint the one feeding Big Pharma. It’s a game, it’s a dream, it’s a faustian deal, it’s an art, it’s a calling it’s an addiction. We’re back to mental illness. All roads lead to the nut house. Buy your tickets, take your ride and suffer your ridicule